Rex Murphy: Mulcair is too loud on Alberta, too mute on Quebec

Mulcair is too loud on Alberta, too mute on Quebec

For over 100 days now, Montreal has been the scene of protests, civil disorder and a couple of truly wild and vile incidents (the subway smoke bombs being the worst). Overall, it appears to be growing into a full-scale contest between government by normal means, and mob rule on the streets.

The original protests against tuition hikes quickly changed into a protest against the response to the protests. (This pattern is, since Seattle in 1999, almost a patented dynamic.) In the last few days, following the Charest government’s introduction of laws designed to set out some order among the growing chaos, the streets have overflowed, and the arrest tally — as I write — is over 2,500.

Meantime, in the faraway province of Alberta, the resentment toward NDP leader Thomas Mulcair’s comments on the oil economy, and the oil sands project in particular, is wide and deep. Mulcair’s remarks have stirred the bitter ghost of the National Energy Program, that critical and not-yet-forgiven federal blundering into Alberta’s economy under Pierre Trudeau’s imperious hand. Once again, many Albertans are observing a national leader, a (potential) prime minister in waiting, decrying their success; and in part blaming the economic failures of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick on the success and prosperity of Alberta.

That’s how many Albertans are reading Mr. Mulcair’s repeated diagnosis of the “Dutch Disease.” And the NDP attempts at rebranding those words are finding little sympathy out West.

It also has occurred to many Canadians that while Mr. Mulcair is extremely fluent, even voluble, on the subject of Alberta, and the development of the oil sands, he and all 57 members of his Quebec caucus seem quite mute on the subject of the turmoil and riots on the streets of Montreal.

It’s an odd spectacle. Dabble freely in Alberta’s affairs, but stay quiet on the home province.

Mr. Mulcair has said, obscurely, that he sees education as a “provincial jurisdiction.” That is an ignominious passing of the buck in the context of the last 100 days. The same applies to his claim that the NDP’s overwhelmingly Québécois character “doesn’t involve weighing in on Quebec provincial debates.”

There is something potentially very inflammatory about the current moment. It was not many years ago that an ugly incident in Brockville, Ont. — a trampling on the Quebec flag, supposedly in “response” to the burning of the Canadian flag in Quebec — mightily soured French-English relations in this country. Mindful of that example, and of the various sensitivities involved here, we need all the quiet, unabrasive voices we have.

The NDP isn’t alone: Liberals and Conservatives also have been staying as low as they can on the protest issue. And they should speak out against the protesters, as well. But it is Mr. Mulcair who potentially has more real leverage over events in Quebec than anyone else in Ottawa. The federal NDP should not be a spectator to the crisis. They are best situated to offer a moderating voice.

For very allied reasons, this is the very worst time for Mr. Mulcair to be spending his time criticizing the economic and political management of a province thousands of kilometres to the West, where the oil wells are humming, but the streets are quiet and orderly.